Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/141

 DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI 293 in the history of painting. A Rossetti drawing of this class hung with specimens of other art, ancient or modern, simply destroys them. I do not mean that it is better or worse than they are, but that it kills them as the electric light puts out a glow-worm. No other man's color will bear these points of ruby-crimson, these expanses of deep turquoise-blue, these flagrant 'scarlets and thunderous purples. He paints the sleeve of a trumpeter ; it is such an orange as the eye can scarce endure to look at. He paints the tiles of a chimney-corner ; they are as green as the peacock's eyes in the sunshine. The world is seldom ready to receive any new thing. These drawings of Rossetti's were scarcely noticed even by those who are habitually on the watch for fresh developments in art. But when the painter next emerges into some- thing like publicity we find him attended by a brilliant company of younger men, all more or less influenced by his teaching and attracted by his gifts. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had been a very ephemeral institution ; in three years, or four at the most, it had ceased to exist ; but its principles and the en- ergy of its founder had left their mark on the whole world of art. In 1849 Ros- setti had exhibited his picture, " The Girlhood of Mary Virgin," at the Portland Gallery, an exhibition in rivalry of the Royal Academy, which existed but a very short time. As far as I can discover, he did not exhibit again in London until 1856, when he and his friends opened a collection of their pictures at 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square. We would rather have seen that little gallery than see most of the show-exhibitions of Europe. In it the fine art of the Anglo-Saxon race was seen dawning again after its long and dark night. Rossetti himself was the principal exhibitor, but his two earliest colleagues, now famous painters, Mr. Millais and Mr. Holman Hunt, also contributed. And here were all the new talents whom Rossetti had attracted around him during the last seven years : Mr. Madox Brown, with his fine genius for history; Mr. J. D. Watson, with his strong mediaeval affinities ; Mr. Boyce, with his delicate portraiture of rustic scenes ; Mr. Brett, the finest of our students of the sea ; Mr. W. B. Scott him- self ; besides one or two others, Mr. Charles Collins, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Halli- day, Mr. Martineau, whom death or adverse fortune removed before they had quite fulfilled their promise. Gabriel Rossetti contributed to this interesting and historic exhibition five or six of those marvellous drawings of which mention has just been made. " Dante's Dream," the famous vision of June 9, 1290, with its counterpart, "The Anniversary of the Dream," in 1291, were the most promi- nent of these. A " Mary Magdalene" was perhaps the most moving and excit- ing. This extremely original design showed the Magdalene pursued by her lov- ers, but turning away from them all to seek Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee. The architecture in this drawing was almost childish ; the wall of Simon's house is not three inches thick, and there is not room for a grown-up person on the stairs that lead to it ; but the tender imagination of the whole, the sweet persuasiveness of Christ, who looks out of a window, the passion of the awakened sinner, who tears the roses out of her hair, the curious novelty of treatment in the heads and draperies, all these combine to make it one of those